


Sacrifice

by Cicuta_virosa



Series: Let's un-fridge a few ladies [1]
Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: AU of Changes, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, F/M, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Susan Rodriguez Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 23:53:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18559675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cicuta_virosa/pseuds/Cicuta_virosa
Summary: Harry saves his child and the mother of his child, but that doesn't mean Maggie's rescue isn't bought on with blood.





	Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> I always thought Changes, where everything is put in place for Harry to have no choice but to kill Susan was an exasperating example of Women fridgded for manpain, so, yes, let's fix that. Harry could still be tortured by his choices without another woman dead.

The war is done.

The Red Court is ashes, from the centuries-old king, to the last newly-fanged vampire. All of them, in just one stroke. The biggest genocide in magical history, an entire race, all around the globe.

And I’m the one who did it.

Not the one who prepared it, planned it.

No, I’m just the one who saw the opportunity and took it in the heat of battle. I killed one of my last three blood relatives alive, using that death to feed a spell that was supposed to kill me, my daughter, and said blood relative. And my brother, but since nobody but me and him know the truth, I supposed he can’t be vexed the Red would have killed him too.

I don’t know if it makes it worst, or better than I didn’t come here to commit genocide. I didn’t think, I just acted.

I went into this to save my child, not to annihilate an entire specie, no matters how I despised them.

And….

I stubble the first steps of the stairs and sit down, heavily, as if the burden in my arms was heavy, when she’s so young, so frail, no more than a feather in my arms.

In her father’s arms.

Susan comes to sit next to me. I abandoned her next to the altar, where she was busy throwing up bile all she could, realizing how close she had come to lost herself to the blood lust. She doesn’t ask questions. She curls her small frame around us, not trying to take Maggie from my arms. I look at her, just a few seconds. She lost something of the savage beauty she had gained since that fateful night when she had been bitten. Now; she looks like an exhausted woman, who had fought hell and heaven for her child and whose adrenaline level is crashing.

For a moment, I thought everything would go fine. I was so, so happy when the Grey Council arrived.

Saved, or almost.

Then Ebenezar was bitten and promptly lost himself, the blood lust too strong in battle….

Susan kisses Maggie’s hair, once, twice, her small hands, her cheeks, but once again, she doesn’t try to take her, no, she just interlace our fingers, despite the blood on mine. She leans down and, to my surprise, kiss the tips of my fingers, like an absolution, despite the blood slowly drying.

My grandfather’s blood, spent by my hand on the altar to save my child, and to stop a war.

The King conceived the spell to kill Ebenezar, and now Ebenezar’s death, just seconds after his transformation into a Red Court Vampire, wiped out the Red Court and its King.

What an irony.

What an irony that I came here to save my child and killed my grandfather for that.

Susan puts her other arm around me and we stay there for a moment, the scent of fire and ashes strong in the air, curled around our child.


End file.
